Leia allowed Ben a full hour inside the Millennium Falcon's guest quarters as he threw a tantrum through both his angry screaming and by flinging the one object in the room—the bed—around with the Force. Once the screaming had died down and Leia heard no more banging along the bulkhead from the bed, she tentatively opened the door and stepped inside. There, she saw Ben sitting on the overturned bed in one corner, looking down at his feet. It took him only a few seconds to raise his head to look up at Leia and he sneered; he shot up to his feet and stomped over to her like the immature child that he was acting as. She remained stoic and in place as he approached her.
"How could you do this to me?!" he yelled as he stopped less than a meter from her. "I was happy there! I had somewhere I could belong!"
"You belong with your family, Ben," Leia replied calmly. "With the Jedi."
"The Jedi aren't my family! My family's dead!"
"You still have your father, Ben. And me and Uncle Han. And Jacen."
"And Jaina, too, right?!" he retorted bitterly.
Leia stifled a wince. "The Sith were not good for you, Ben. They didn't really care about you; we do."
"No, you don't really care about me! If you did, you would've killed Jaina for what she did to my mom! But, no! Because she's your daughter, that means you care about her more than me!"
"Ben, that isn't what this is about," Leia said with a slight note of irritation appearing in her voice.
"I don't care what you think this is about, Aunt Leia! I don't wanna live with the Jedi! I wanna live with the Lost Tribe! They've become my real family! They're letting me be all I can be! They're not telling me not to embrace my emotions because it's a bad thing! And Vestara! Vestara's become my friend! She became my friend when no one else could be on Shedu Maad! And you took all that from me! How dare you?! HOW DARE YOU?!"
He reached one hand out to try to Force-strangle Leia; but even with her loose training as a Jedi throughout the years, she was still able to bat his attack away with her own invisible defense and follow it up quickly by telekinetically shoving Ben to the bulkhead behind him. There, he struggled vainly in Leia's grasp as she approached him with a severe look.
"If we didn't really care about you, Ben," Leia whispered as she leaned close to him, "do you think we would've saved you? Do you think Master Kam would've given his own life for you?"
Ben paused when he heard that. "Master Kam is dead?" he asked with mild shock.
Leia nodded. "You didn't feel it through the Force? Because I did. It was just before your Uncle Han launched us into hyperspace, well away from the Lost Tribe."
Ben looked confused for only a moment before a mask of resolve settled over his face. "You're lying! Master Kam wouldn't have done that! And, yeah, I would've felt him die through the Force! I've known him and Master Tionne all my life! So you have to be lying!"
"If you really think that, Ben, then I'll let you search my presence through the Force. And you'll know I'm not lying."
Ben scowled. "You can trick me like that."
"You'll find no trace of deception from my feelings, Ben. You'll find no blockages. And when you do, you'll realize that the only reason you didn't feel Kam give his life for you is because you chose the wrong path; you chose the path that allowed you to turn your back on everyone who really loved you. And when you did that, you closed yourself off from them through the Force. So I'm going to let you go; I'm going to trust you not to attack me because I don't want you thinking that none of us care about you."
A pause occurred between them for several seconds before Leia dropped her telekinetic hold on Ben and allowed him to return to his feet. Another pause ensued in which the expression on Ben's face, coupled with his angered and disbelieving Force-presence, made it seem to Leia that he would, indeed, try to Force-strangle her again; for her part, though, she remained clam in both outward expression and in her own Force-presence.
When that second pause finally ended, Ben closed his eyes and reached out to Leia's presence in a surprisingly calm manner. She allowed him to touch her essence as she promised and gave him no mental or emotional barriers that he might have encountered had she attempted to hold anything back from him. Leia wished that she had the ability to share her memories with Ben to make it clearer to him that she meant no deceit, just like Jacen with what he learned from the Theran Listeners, and her heart briefly sank at the memory of what her remaining son showed her of that robot that had her dead son Anakin's voice and memories.
As he reached out to her, he could feel a sentiment of grief emanating from her; yes, it was her grief for Kam's sacrifice, Ben felt, combined with her ever-present sadness for Anakin's loss. And with a little bit of reading of her surface thoughts—something that the Lost Tribe, in their brief time with him, helped him refine from his Jedi studies—he could tell that her mourning was, indeed, directed at Kam's death.
But there was more, Ben sensed. He got a vague impression of someone else spilling into Leia's thoughts: Jaina.
He sneered as he recoiled from probing his aunt's presence any further. "Go away! Leave me alone! I don't care if Master Kam gave his life! He still helped you take me away from the Tribe!" He pointed at the door as if he had any real authority. "Leave!"
Leia wanted to say more, but with a brief scan of her nephew's Force-presence, she shut her mouth up. Instead, she only nodded, turned, and walked out the door.
Once the door was closed behind her, she saw that Han was off to her left with a downcast expression.
"Sounds like it didn't go to well," he remarked dryly.
"Sounded like it, yes," she replied. "But I sense something more."
"What?" he asked.
"He's starting to think about it," she said. "Contrary to what he just said, Han, Ben does feel something for Kam's death. It's small, but it's there. And I think the best thing we can do is just give him some space and let him really mull this over." She sighed. "I do wish, though, that I didn't think about Jaina just then."
"Any particular reason why she came into your thoughts?" Han asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Leia nodded. "I see so much of Jaina in him; the darkness, the anger. It's breaking my heart the same way when Jaina fell to the dark side, Han." She inhaled sharply through her nose to stem the tide of emotions welling within her. "But I think he can be helped. Though he'll need a lot more than what either of us can provide to him emotionally."
"You really think there's not much else we can do for him?"
Leia shook her head morosely. "A part of me thinks so, but, really, I think what Ben honestly needs... is his father."
. . .
"Admiral," a comm officer reported, "we've just intercepted a communication from Coronet's main spaceport to a CorSec division in the city. Apparently, it's about the Jedi Knights we sent down to Corellia."
Seated in the command chair of the Galactic Alliance Star Destroyer Admiral Ackbar, Nek Bwua'tu looked concerned for obvious reasons; since the Horn siblings last reported that they were taking a CorSec team to arrest Prime Minister Gejjen on suspicion of assassinating his predecessor Aidel Saxan, they went missing along with Gejjen while the entirety of the CorSec team was found dead in the P.M.'s office with lightsaber burns.
"What about the Horns?" Bwua'tu asked.
"It seems they're attacking the spaceport, sir!" the comm officer replied in disbelief. "And they're- Wait!" He held his right earpiece more tightly to his head. "Update, sir! The Jedi have taken a light freighter and they're blasting off from the spaceport!"
"Is CorSec in pursuit?" Bwua'tu inquired.
"Yes, sir! I'll let you know what happens when we get another development!" Less than a tense minute later, the comm officer reported, "Sir, something strange is happening to the CorSec cruisers! They're... all crashing into each other?"
Now Bwua'tu shared in the officer's confusion. "Why are they all crashing into each other?"
"I don't know, sir. But from the CorSec frequency, it seems... it seems they're seeing things, sir. Various insects, monsters, things that... it doesn't make any sense, sir."
Bwua'tu's muzzle resolved firmly into place before he said, "Never mind any of that. What about the freighter that the Jedi took?"
"It's reaching the stratosphere, sir. It should be free of Corellia's gravity in a matter of minutes."
Bwua'tu looked to another comm officer. "Lieutenant Pensky, find that freighter's transponder code and contact it. I wanna know what the hell these Jedi are thinking."
At around the same time that a light Corellian freighter breached its namesake planet's atmosphere and came into view of the Ackbar, the second comm officer said, "Frequency established, Admiral."
"Put it on my personal holoprojector," Bwua'tu ordered.
"Aye, sir."
A second later, a holographic display showing Valin Horn's blank visage—as he must have been the freighter's pilot—showed up before Bwua'tu's face.
"Jedi Horn, what are you and your sister doing?!" the admiral snapped. "Is it true that you killed those CorSec officers in the Prime Minister's office? And where is he, anyway?"
"You know as well as we do that none of that matters, Admiral Bwua'tu," Horn replied dryly. "Or whatever your real name is. All that matters is that you're in our way and we won't allow that."
The transmission was then cut off from the other end. Bwua'tu tried twice to bring it back up before a sensor officer ripped his attention away with, "Admiral, we have incoming arrivals from hyperspace!"
"What kind of arrivals?" Bwua'tu inquired.
"Just a minute, sir, they're..." The officer's tone dropped in horror as he muttered, "Emperor's black bones."
"What is it?" Bwua'tu asked impatiently; strangely, though, he felt more impatient than he normally would have in a situation like this, but he wasn't sure why.
The sensor officer swivelled around in his seat and uttered, "It's the Vong, sir."
"The Yuuzhan Vong?" Bwua'tu asked incredulously. "But how could that be? They've been..." He trailed off as he looked out through the forward viewport as dozens, if not hundreds, of the extragalactic alien invaders' organic vessels suddenly dropped out of what they called darkspace and almost instantly annihilated several GA ships with surprisingly few volleys of fire from their plasma cannons. And within mere seconds, they cleared through the debris of those destroyed ships and took their place.
It was all so surreal to Bwua'tu; in fact, had it not been for the sudden onrush of fear that poured into his mind that overcame whatever military discipline that had been drilled into him from years of experience, he would have thought it impossible, even absurdly ridiculous, that GA ships could be destroyed that easily.
Nevertheless, he refused to believe that his eyes deceived him, so he ordered, "Fire all batteries on the Vong! Let loose everything! Launch all fighters! Spare them no quarter!"
. . .
From the safety of the freighter that they had stolen—or rather, liberated, considering that whoever the real owner of this ship was had been replaced by an imposter—Jysella watched the opening stages of the battle between the false Galactic Alliance war vessels as they opened fire on one another in the Corellian system. Of course, that was between her piloting of the freighter from the copilot seat while Valin—who seemed to be the only other real person in this system—had his eyes closed in concentration as he invaded the minds of many GA imposters from ship to ship.
Now, normally, to manipulate the minds of those around them, it would require a great deal of power and prolonged effort from Valin just to influence more than a few non-sapient animals and insects, as had been the case when he was a child growing up on Yavin 4. So to take on the minds of members of sentient species would not only have been a factual impossibility, but it would have been horribly immoral and steeped deep in the dark side of the Force.
But with the knowledge that no matter what happened to these imposters all around them, the Horn siblings were secure in the belief that not only what they were doing was necessary, but it was also right. These imposters had no right to replace those around them; thus, they themselves had no right to the lives that they had stolen. And with the greater power afforded to them from afar by the Queen of the Stars, Valin didn't need to expend so much energy and concentration on manipulating so many minds at once; all he simply had to do was invade those minds, several at a time, and plant the seeds of fear and false images and let them grow to take on lives of their own. It was a powerful modification of what Valin had inherited from his father, who had the ability to plant false images into the minds of others, not unlike the Fallanassi of Pydyr.
Hence, as Jysella piloted the freighter around the fire blossoming through projectiles and exploding craft, she couldn't help but laugh with childish glee. And it wasn't long after that as they got out of the Corellian star's gravity well did Valin emerge from the trance into which he subsumed himself and began laughing with his sister.
Then they jumped into hyperspace, leaving behind an ongoing battle between GA ships that had commenced a spectacular free fire throughout the Corellian system.
. . .
As he arose from the realm beyond shadows, Luke heard his own voice, and that of Jaina's, from more than a year before come back to haunt him in the fading darkness. There were gaps, things that weren't as relevant to his mind now than they were back then, but, nonetheless, those words haunted him.
"Why, Uncle Luke? Why won't you strip me of my rank?"
"Because I won't let you walk away from a second chance."
"A second chance? After everything I-"
"Jaina, I made you the Sword of the Jedi, and in spite of all of the mistakes you've made... you proved yourself on the side of the light, even with the darkness that I sense within you. I cannot ignore the fact that even at the direct cost of Zekk's life, you still played a pivotal role in ending this conflict between the Killiks and the Chiss...
"I give you another chance to redeem yourself... so that you will not be remembered as a disgrace to the Jedi Order... Because I know that you won't be."
At that, Luke's eyes simply opened up and he saw Jacen and Kyp stare down at him with a shared look of anxious expectation. He looked back up at them with some worry mixed in with the residual feeling of bitterness at the words that he remembered saying to Jaina before he sent her, Jacen, and the late Lowbacca and Corran Horn to find the rogue Jedi who had stayed with the dead Killik Dark Nest.
And that was to say nothing of what he had learned from Abeloth well before he emerged from beyond shadows: that Callista was now a part of her. But for now, Luke had to stifle that notion from his mind and focus on the here and now.
"What is it?" Luke asked. He sat up on the medbay bed and looked around; he recognized the room as the Solo Quest II's medbay. "What happened?" It was clear he meant why they weren't on Sinkhole Station anymore.
Kyp then proceeded to explain everything that happened after Luke and the Solo twins Mind Walked, including the arrival of the insane Jedi Knights who should have been helping the Millennium Falcon locate the missing Jedi children from the Lost Tribe of the Sith, the turning of all the Knights in their own party save for Jaden Korr and the now-dead Doran Sarkin-Tainer, and the losses that they all sustained. Luke couldn't help but wince at the mention of the losses of Octa Ramis and Tresina Lobi.
After Luke was informed that Jaina, who had emerged from beyond shadows before him or Jacen, had found out where the Dagger of Mortis was, he asked, "Where is she now?"
Kyp cast his eyes down to his feet as he said, "I'm sorry, Master Skywalker. She tricked me; she made me think that she had poisoned you and Jedi Solo and I-"
"Where is Jaina now, Master Durron?" Luke asked pointedly.
Kyp swallowed. "I don't know, Master Skywalker."
"When I came to," Jacen spoke up, "we were parked on a backwater world a few light years from Kessel, a little unknown redoubt for smugglers and pirates. I found Master Durron had been tied up in the galley before we took off; I couldn't sense Jaina anywhere on the planet."
Luke exhaled hard through his nostrils in muted frustration. "She abandoned us," he said simply.
"Again, I'm so sorry, Master Skywalker-" Kyp began.
"Save the recriminations for later, Master Durron," Luke said as he swung his legs off the bed and down to the deck. "Let's see if we can find any trace of where she might have gone. Tell me, did she disclose where exactly the Dagger of Mortis was?"
"She had the coordinates for the system plugged into the Quest's navcomp," Kyp said. "I made sure of that myself, at least."
"Are those coordinates still there?" Luke asked.
Kyp nodded confidently. "They weren't tampered with; it was the last thing we checked before you came from Mind Walking, Master Skywalker."
Luke gave a bitter half-smile. "So while she's gone off in hiding, she was at least considerate enough to have left us the coordinates for the Dagger of Mortis. We can only hope that they are the real ones."
"She told the truth about that, Master Skywalker," Kyp supplied. "Masters K'Kruhk and Katarn made sure of that."
Luke looked away in thought; neither Jacen nor Kyp said anything to disrupt his thoughts.
When he looked back at them, he stood up to his full height and said, "Then we have no time to waste. Let's go find this Dagger." He then exited the medbay with the two subordinate Jedi in tow.
Jaina would have her time, Luke thought. But for now, they had bigger fish to fry.
